@steve_v
thank you very much, steve_v... you are that bright spark to bring light into this mystery.
It's entirely my fault that I recorded the IP address wrongly - I didn't know that.

I've corrected the hosts entry and everything works fine as it should.
I don't know which devil has bitten me to add a leading 0 in an octet.

BTW: I never spat upon NetworkManager. I only tried to understand the problem. Thank you.

surprise surprise....
Artix (OpenRC, Cinnamon) shows the same problem

Artix (OpenRC, XFCE) does not.

Artix with Cinnamon uses NetworkManager
Artrix with XFCE uses Connman.

Older versions (older Cinnamon and older nm) worked correctly.

Linux Mint did work, but I have not tested the latest version.

Scratching my head... the devil must be hidden somewhere.

@rolfie
I see the discrepancy, and I agree with you.
And, the /etc/resolv.conf is not even the problem here.
The /etc/nsswitch.conf is correct too: it states for hosts lookup it should consult the files first (/etc/hosts) and then mdsn and then dns.
That's the point. In that case names in the /etc/hosts file must be resolved as it always did. It does not now.

I see the ultimate outcome..... to remove the network manager. That's okay for a workstation PC, but NOT for a laptop. I fear to have to test a laptop for that reason.
I still wonder if the kernel may be to blame - it goes beyond my understanding.

Thank you for your responses and questions.

@g4sra

root@tinkerbox:~# cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1	localhost
127.0.1.1	tinkerbox.home	tinkerbox

172.22.22.05	colossus.home colossus
172.22.22.12	printer

I only added the last 2 lines.

@Altoid
Yes, it's quite possible it will come to that, but: NetworkManager shouldn't affect /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/hosts or any of these files, except, unfortunately, the /etc/resolv.conf file.

@both
Would you like to get all network information? I could put it in an extra response.
Again, that problem never appeared in previous releases.

Brother_MFC_J5340DW working perfectly well here.
No drivers installed at all.
Devuan5 (Daedalus) with CUPS and IPP

implicitclass://Brother_MFC_J5340DW/
Brother MFC-J5340DW, driverless, cups-filters 1.28.17

Just connect the printer to the local network, set it up, and off you go.
Chances are that your chosen model will work that way.

Just a hint:
https://www.debugpoint.com/cinnamon-5-8-features/

Devuan Excalibur is at Cinnamon v. 6.4
Devuan Daedalus at 5.6
Good luck.

Cinnamon works perfectly well on Devuan 5 (Daedalus) and Excalibur, and all this on X11 (Xorg).
XFCE works as well, but Cinnamon is the way to go when looking for comfort. All this "out-of-the-box" - and can be tweaked too.
I have no intention to burn my fingers with Wayland.

My slogan is: stay away from Canon printers.
I bought one once, a day later I donated it to a Windows user.
If you are lucky and the printer has a network interface, you can reset it to factory-defaults and try use the CUPS driverless printing system.
Some years ago, I was able to connect a Canon printer (can't remember the model) to the network and it worked right away with Linux Mint, without any fiddling with configuration, drivers or installation. It just worked, printer and scanner. The same goes for Devuan5 (Daedalus). Standard desktop install.
I had very good results with Brother MFC printers, and HP as well.
Good luck

Wayland breaks professional software, that's bad enough:

https://linuxiac.com/kicad-advises-linu … cb-design/

I used kicad quite a lot. So wayland is a no. X is and will be.

I agree with rolfie,
Your laptop computer seems to be fairly recent. That means it's no use to fiddle with MBR and Legacy BIOS modes.
To successfully install Devuan Daedalus:
- completely reset your BIOS/Firmware settings and
- DISABLE just "Secure Boot"
- boot your PC with a Daedalus USB stick
- wipe the disk completely
- let the setup program configure your disk
- modify the setup to reduce the root filesystem
- add a /home partition (ext4) into the now free place
  (of course you can set up any partition you like, but leave the EFI partition unchanged)
- let the installer do it's work
- Then reboot to check if the system behaves as planned
- Now you may re-install as you like, but leave the boot structure unchanged, then it should work well.

BTW, EFI (UEFI) mode with Secure Boot disabled and the disk in GPT mode is preferable.
Possibly you don't need my advice, still, sometimes it's good to be reminded of it.
Good luck

Exactly,
the same old problem with the resolution of these "round-robin" DNS names resurfaces again and again.
I had to switch from my old, trusty own DNS named server (BIND) to the typical service-provider setup and that made me unhappy again.
The only solution was and is to replace "deb.devuan.org" with somewhat "XY.deb.devuan.org" in the /etc/apt/sources.list file, replacing the XY with the nearest mirror-country-code.
I don't know what HPFM is behind all these silly ISPs.
I'm not good enough to know how the Devuan community could set up a /etc/apt/sources.list file that would remedy the situation for once and ever.